


learn to love me

by underherspell



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Codependency, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Perhaps a very slight trigger warning, SnowBarry - Freeform, So much angst, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 09:44:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14258262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underherspell/pseuds/underherspell
Summary: Maybe, she thinks, on some other Earth, somewhere in the multiverse, there is a life in which they live happily, not carrying the weight of a million souls on their depleted shoulders.





	learn to love me

**Author's Note:**

> cheers to angsty first works
> 
> I listened to next time by laurel while writing this, and I recommend listening to it while reading as well to get you in the mood  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqBzrE9Dn2U
> 
> enjoy :)

Lies spill from every pore of their bodies like rain drops fall from rose petals.

They hold hands, go on dates, kiss like any ordinary couple would. During the day they persuade themselves into thinking that they’re happy with one another, that there is no one else in the world they would rather be with. Every so often, Joe and Cisco would drop the slightest hints of a wedding – a little _Caitlin would look amazing in white, don’t you think?_ here, or an insignificant _Barry’s grandmother’s ring is just gathering dust upstairs. Shame really, it’s one of a kind_ there. 

In situations like these, Caitlin’s maroon tinted lips would perk up in an absinthian smile and Barry would disguise the sorrow in his eyes with a small chuckle. They share no loving gazes, make no plans to take a step forward in their pseudo relationship. 

When the sky turns an inky shade of cobalt and Central City is relatively safe for the night, they retreat to the mocking emptiness of their own homes and fall into a cold bed (sometimes laugh, sometimes weep over how positively fucked up their situation is). Their dreams wander to loves that will never be requited and they realize, with arduous surrender, that they need one another like a drowning man needs air.

Two beings shattered far beyond repair; cracked mirrors that will never return to their primary state, projecting warped versions of the same image in the many pieces that make up a whole. 

For they are too lonely to be loved (but not _loved_ ) by anyone else but each other, too broken to use the delicate hands of time to learn how to put themselves back together. 

Love and codependency – so similar yet so contrastive, Barry and Caitlin being the latter, of course, because what better way to describe their relationship other than excessive emotional reliance on one another? They’re both achingly aware of it. But they cannot love anymore – they have endured one heartbreak too many to even consider putting themselves in a situation like that again.

Ronnie Raymond and Iris West are the prime culprits of the numbing pain inflicted upon their unexpecting victims; the former having been swallowed by the sky ( _that stupid, stupid sky_ Caitlin thinks), the latter happily married and far away with a surname that is not West-Allen. Barry pales in comparison to the stranger who whisked his first (sorely one sided) love off her feet and the fact that he will never be anything other than a best friend to Iris leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

And so, the only rational solution presents itself in the dead of night, when they are both bare and exposed and unable to tell where Caitlin’s body ends and where Barry’s begins. She whimpers Ronnie’s name into the crook of Barry’s neck and he pants _Iris, Iris, Iris_ like a prayer as he sucks on the skin just above her obsolete heart. 

She knows she will never be Iris. Iris is pretty and perfect, a comforting mug of hot cocoa on the coldest day of December while Caitlin is the relentless snowstorm people wish would _just end already_.

When she wakes, the only trace of Barry ever being there is the imprint of his body in the sheets beside her. She takes a shower, pats rosy blush onto her cheeks and paints her lips a sensible red, then goes to work. Never discusses the previous night with him; they both pretend they didn’t hear the other say names that weren’t their own into the skin of an unintended lover (but not _lover_ ).

On some nights, Caitlin lies awake, speculating the possibility of a version of themselves that isn’t crippled by an affection never to be returned by those they yearn for. Maybe, she thinks, on some other Earth, somewhere in the multiverse, there is a life in which they live happily, not carrying the weight of a million souls on their depleted shoulders. 

But on others, she plants herself in the middle of an empty road, lying on her back and uncaring that a car could drive by at any moment. On these particular nights, she stares at the stars with hatred in her eyes and poison on her fingertips, blaming the azoic lights above her for everything gone wrong in her life as if they held the power to change the course of fate. 

She convinces herself that she is condemned to a life of misery on every Earth, in every multiverse, and forever destined to drag those she cares about down with her. She remains on the cracked asphalt until the sun peeks it’s head out from behind the clouds like a child playing hide and seek, and (usually) Barry finds her, numb and alone, takes her back to her apartment and tells her to take the day off (she doesn’t).

She knows he’s trying to be strong for her, pretending she can’t see the dark circles under his eyes or how he gets thinner day by day. She humors him, pretends she doesn’t notice, because she knows he’ll come back later that same night, silently begging her to make him forget, and she complies, as she always does and is ill-fated to always will.


End file.
